A new launch 3 bedroom condo cost more per square foot than a resale 3 bedroom in every region in every year from 2017 to 2025

A 3 bedroom is the family home of the private market, and the choice at the showflat is the same for every buyer: the new launch or the older home down the road.

In 2025 a resale 3 bedroom sold for a median $2,050,000 and a new launch for $2,496,000, 21.8% more. That gap is real, and per square foot it is larger and has been there since 2017. A new launch 3 bedroom has cost more per square foot than a resale 3 bedroom in every region in every year from 2017 to 2025. That is twenty-seven region-years, and in all twenty-seven the new launch costs more, by between 29.3% and 63.9%.

In the CCR the total price points the other way, because of size. A CCR new launch 3 bedroom is about 1,012 sqft; a CCR resale 3 bedroom is 1,437 sqft. On total price the new launch there looks cheaper in 5 of the 9 years. Per square foot it costs 35.1% more.

What is in this note

• What a 3 bedroom costs: the 2025 median price of a resale 3 bedroom against a new-launch 3 bedroom, in the core central region (CCR), the city fringe (RCR) and the suburbs (OCR), and how far prices spread above and below those medians.
• How the gap widened: the price difference between a new launch and a resale, by region, across all 9 years.
• Per square foot, the new launch has always cost more: the same price difference measured per square foot rather than per unit.
• Why the CCR reads backwards: the one region where a new launch costs less in total but more per square foot, and what explains it.
• What a new 3 bedroom gives you: how much floor area each kind of 3 bedroom comes with, and how that has changed.

What a 3 bedroom costs

Median transacted price in 2025, private condominiums and apartments.

Region	Resale	New launch	Difference
Outside Central	$1,735,000	$2,189,500	+26.2%
Rest of Central	$2,240,000	$2,620,500	+17.0%
Core Central	$3,180,000	$3,012,000	−5.3%

The median is the middle. Working to a budget, the range matters more. In each row, 5% of buyers paid less than the first figure and 5% paid more than the last. Resale prices, purchases from January 2024:

Region	Bottom 5%	Median	Top 5%
Outside Central	$1,200,000	$1,700,000	$2,688,888
Rest of Central	$1,500,311	$2,240,000	$3,508,250
Core Central	$1,920,500	$3,180,000	$6,044,000

And new launches over the same window:

Region	Bottom 5%	Median	Top 5%
Outside Central	$1,701,835	$2,237,000	$3,053,200
Rest of Central	$1,873,700	$2,667,000	$3,621,300
Core Central	$2,428,000	$3,108,500	$4,990,000

The two markets barely overlap outside central. The cheapest twentieth of new launches there starts at $1,701,835, which is above the median resale of $1,700,000. In the CCR they overlap heavily, because the resale range is wide, $1.9 million to $6 million.

How the gap widened

How much more a new launch 3 bedroom costs than a resale 3 bedroom, in total price.

• OCR (suburban)
• RCR (city fringe)
• CCR (prime)

Region	2017	2021	2025
Outside Central	−1.2%	+21.0%	+26.2%
Rest of Central	+1.8%	+11.0%	+17.0%
Core Central	−6.9%	−2.0%	−5.3%

Outside central and on the city fringe the pattern is the same as in the 2 bedroom market. A new 3 bedroom cost about what a resale 3 bedroom did in 2017. The gap opened from 2020, peaked at 44.2% outside central in 2023, and has narrowed since to 26.2%.

The CCR does not follow that pattern, and its line swings from minus 7.0% to plus 36.8% without a trend. Prime new launches are few, 107 to 571 sales a year against 1,599 to 3,347 resales outside central, so one project moves the median. The next section explains what the CCR line is actually measuring.

Per square foot, the new launch has always cost more

The total price compares two homes of different sizes. Per square foot removes that difference.

2017

Region	Resale	New launch	Premium
Outside Central	S$914	S$1,210	+32.4%
Rest of Central	S$1,153	S$1,513	+31.2%
Core Central	S$1,666	S$2,178	+30.7%

2025

Region	Resale	New launch	Premium
Outside Central	S$1,489	S$2,242	+50.6%
Rest of Central	S$1,852	S$2,715	+46.6%
Core Central	S$2,243	S$3,031	+35.1%

• OCR (suburban)
• RCR (city fringe)
• CCR (prime)

Across all twenty-seven region-years, a new launch 3 bedroom cost more per square foot than a resale 3 bedroom. The narrowest gap in the whole record is the RCR in 2019, at 29.3%; the widest is outside central in 2022, at 63.9%. There is no year and no region where the new launch was the cheaper square foot.

At 2 bedrooms the same test also passed twenty-seven times, but its narrowest case was 15.2%. At 3 bedrooms the premium never gets close to closing. That comparison is the 2 bedroom note's own measurement, not a second reading taken here.

Why the CCR reads backwards

A CCR new launch 3 bedroom cost $3,012,000 in 2025 and a CCR resale 3 bedroom $3,180,000, so the resale is dearer by $168,000. Per square foot the new launch costs 35.1% more, S$3,031 against S$2,243.

Both are true because they are not the same home. The CCR resale 3 bedroom has a median floor area of 1,437 sqft; the new launch has 1,012 sqft. That difference is not confined to the CCR: a new 3 bedroom runs roughly a fifth smaller than a resale 3 bedroom nationally. The resale buyer is paying more in total for 425 sqft more space at a lower price per foot.

This is why the total-price line for the CCR should not be read as a discount on new launches. In 5 of the 9 years it is negative, and in all 9 years the new launch costs more per square foot.

What a new 3 bedroom gives you

• OCR (suburban) new launch
• OCR (suburban) resale
• RCR (city fringe) new launch
• RCR (city fringe) resale
• CCR (prime) new launch
• CCR (prime) resale

Median floor area, sqft:

2017

Region	Resale	New
Outside Central	1,270	969
Rest of Central	1,302	1,033
Core Central	1,496	1,044

2025

Region	Resale	New
Outside Central	1,195	969
Rest of Central	1,227	1,023
Core Central	1,437	1,012

A new 3 bedroom is about 1,000 square feet wherever it is built, and has been for 9 years: 969 sqft outside central in both 2017 and 2025, 1,033 then 1,023 sqft on the city fringe, 1,044 then 1,012 sqft in prime. Unlike the 2 bedroom, which shrank to 678 sqft over the period, the new 3 bedroom has held its size.

Resale 3 bedrooms have shrunk instead, from 1,270 to 1,195 sqft outside central and 1,302 to 1,227 sqft on the city fringe, as the compact 3 bedrooms of the 2010s reach the resale market. So the size gap between new and resale has narrowed slightly, from about 300 sqft to about 225 sqft outside central, while the price gap per square foot has widened.

What this tells you

A new 3 bedroom costs more per square foot than a resale 3 bedroom. That is true in all twenty-seven region-years this note measures, and the gap ranges from 29.3% at its narrowest, in the city fringe (RCR) in 2019, to 63.9% at its widest, in the suburbs (OCR) in 2022.

On total price the picture is different, and it depends on the region.

In the suburbs and the city fringe, the total-price gap opened up over the 9 years. In 2017 a new launch in the suburbs cost 1.2% less than a resale 3 bedroom, and in the city fringe 1.8% more. By 2025 those were 26.2% and 17.0% more. Both regions moved from roughly parity to a substantial premium.

The core central region (CCR) did not. A new 3 bedroom there cost 6.9% less than a resale 3 bedroom in 2017 and 5.3% less in 2025, and it was cheaper in 5 of the 9 years. It is the region where the pattern does not hold: instead of moving from parity to a premium and staying there, it swung either way, from 36.8% more in 2018 to 24.3% more in 2024, and over the 9 years the new-launch discount narrowed, from 6.9% to 5.3%.

The reason is floor area. A new 3 bedroom in the core central region is 1,012 square feet against a resale 3 bedroom's 1,437, a difference of 425 square feet. The new unit costs $168,000 less in total, and $3,031 per square foot against $2,243, which is 35.1% more. It is cheaper because it is smaller, not because it is better value.

That size difference is not confined to the core central region. In 2025 a new 3 bedroom ran from 969 square feet in the suburbs to 1,023 square feet in the city fringe. Those two regions have held a narrow band all 9 years, between 936 and 1,087 square feet. The core central region has not: it swung from 1,012 to 1,518, peaking in 2018.

Resale 3 bedrooms have shrunk in all three regions. In 2025 a resale 3 bedroom ran from 1,195 square feet in the suburbs to 1,437 square feet in the core central region, and since 2017 the median has changed: from 1,270 to 1,195 in the suburbs, 1,302 to 1,227 in the city fringe, and 1,496 to 1,437 in the core central region.

So the two comparisons answer different questions. Per square foot, a new 3 bedroom costs more everywhere and always has. On total price it depends on the region, and where it looks cheaper it is because you are buying less of it.

What this does not tell you

• Whether either is worth it. A new home comes with a full lease, no wear, and the pick of units before the building exists. Whether that is worth 30% to 60% more per square foot is a judgement this note does not make.
• What it rents for. Rent and gross rental yield for a 3 bedroom are a separate question, covered in a separate note.
• What happens after you buy. In the 2 bedroom series the mortgage rate and the stamp duty paid moved a buyer's return more than the choice of new or resale did.
• Your own home. These are middle values across hundreds of projects. Floor, facing, condition and project matter more for one unit than any median here.

Method and data notes. Sale data to 1 September 2026.

Transacted prices from URA caveat data for private condominiums and apartments, collective sales excluded, floor areas outside 200 to 6,000 sqft excluded, resales and new sales counted separately, 2017 to 2025. Bedroom count is resolved from the unit record. Year-on-year comparisons are made within each region and never across the national pool, because what sells where changes from year to year and moves a national median on its own. Medians are unrounded and the premium is computed from unrounded medians. Percentile figures cover purchases from January 2024 to 1 September 2026.

One exclusion this note does not apply. The 2 bedroom notes drop unit records claiming more than 1,000 square feet per bedroom, on the reasoning that such a record has probably lost a bedroom. The instrument behind this note measures the caveat and does not read unit records, so there is no bedroom claim to test. Measured rather than assumed: 259 of the 40,422 resale caveats in this series carry that class, 0.64%, and none of the 24,100 new-launch caveats does. The class is proportionally smaller at 3 bedrooms than at 2 bedrooms, because 3,000 sqft across 3 bedrooms is a genuinely large home rather than a mislabelled record.

Prime new-launch medians rest on 107 to 571 sales a year and can be moved by a single project. Sale data to 1 September 2026.

30 October 2026. This note placed homes in market segments by postal district. URA places them by planning area, which moves about one in seven private sales between regions. The figures by region here use the earlier segments and differ from what the same records give now. How regions are set: How we measure prices and sales.